In the prior art, an optical beam expanding connector typically includes a mounting body and a plurality of beam expanding functional components. A mounting hole is formed in the mounting body, with the plurality of beam expanding functional components being mounted therein. Generally, the plurality of beam expanding functional components mainly includes a ferrule, an optical fiber, a lens, and a centering component. The optical fiber is accommodated in an inner hole of the ferrule. The ferrule is mounted in the mounting hole of the mounting body. The lens is mounted in the mounting hole of the mounting body and arranged at the front end face of the ferrule so as to expand the diameter of the light beam output from the optical fiber. The centering component is mounted on the ferrule so as to align the axis of the ferrule with the axis of the mounting hole.
In the prior art, each beam expanding functional component of the optical beam expanding connector is mounted directly in the mounting hole of the mounting body of the connector. Thus, it is necessary that the internal structure of the mounting hole conform to the shape of each beam expanding functional component to be mounted.
At present, there is no uniform industry standard for design of the optical beam expanding connector. Therefore, internal structures of the mounting holes in different series of optical beam expanding connectors are usually different from each other. Therefore, it is necessary to separately design and manufacture beam expanding functional components that conform to the internal structure of the mounting holes and beam expanding functional components of different series of optical beam expanding connectors are not interchangeable. Thus, it is necessary to separately design and manufacture dedicated beam expanding functional components for different series of optical beam expanding connectors, which may waste lots of labor and material and may lead to a long development cycle.
In addition, in the prior art, a strong spring is usually provided in the mounting hole of the mounting body and when the cable in the connector is pulled outwardly, the strong spring is compressed so as to provide a corresponding reaction force to prevent the optical fiber of the cable from being pulled, thus preventing the optoelectronic coupling end faces of the connector from being separated.
However, such an anti-pulling solution has the following defects: limited anti-pulling capacity which is generally less than 20N, larger volume of the strong spring for anti-pulling, resulting in difficult miniaturization for the connector, and complex structure of the connector.